Revisiting Death…by Barbell that is.

Death By Barbell (DBB) is a robust barbell WOD – the weight is moderate to heavy, discount depending on your ability and there are a lot of reps which will test your efficiency (among other things).  DBB is long enough that you can’t just sprint through it and worry about the lactic acid build after, so every athlete will enter the pain cave at some point.
I would like to use DBB to highlight strength weaknesses.  Some of these ideas may be true for you, some may not.  Also, if strength is your weakness, you are lucky – I would consider strength the easiest issue to address.  BUT…strength takes time to develop.  Yes, you can improve your strength over the next 6 weeks, but use the lessons learned over the coming weeks and months.  Then, look out world!
Generally, DBB exposes core, leg strength/muscular endurance and shoulder strength/muscle endurance.
If you had to break your Squats or Jerks in sets smaller than 3, you likely have some strength issues to address to get faster (and to increase your overall fitness).
The good news?
Starting next week, we will be adding an additional heavy squat day each week – Back Squat on Mondays, Front Squat on Thursday or Fridays.
Getting stronger legs will help, but so will focusing on your positioning in the Front Squat.  Keeping the bar deep in your front rack with high elbows will keep your midline tight and let your legs do the work.
If you aren’t doing the push up challenge – you should be.  Of course Jerking the bar will help, but that beats me up.  You can work on your pressing in many ways – I like the strict pressing of the Cube, the pressing and core work of the push up challenge, and I am working bar dips every week.
Jerking is good, but some times moving the bar really fast allows you to “speed” the bar through your weakness.
If you found that your upper body was collapsing on Front Squats, or the bar was crashing down, causing you to focus on the return, you may want to spend some time strengthening your core – planks, GHD work (more on that soon) can have huge carry over to all your movement.  Don’t be “frontally fixated” here.  Your low back, glutes and hamstrings are as much of your core as your abs.
Additionally, we started the “Milo” power clean plan.  I hope to see great carry over on this drill, but ensure you are using great technique for each lift.

Workout of the Day
Strength/Skill
Deadlift
3 sets of 8, 70% of 1RM
Conditioning
AMRAP 12
Parking Lot Run
10 Burpees to Plate